Pathway to Japanese Literature

“Crabs—those with sturdy thorns.”
“…They were still quite rare in Tokyo then. As I walked through the fish market—jostling past stalls where lagoon fish like crucian carp and mullet splashed about being sold—those thorny crabs caught my eye like dusk-time bonfires. So I brought along the women with me: my wife and another, a relative’s daughter.”
“—I ought to offer my greetings.”

The painter, Mr. Hosaka Issha, lightly placed his hands on his knees.
Having placed a rolled tobacco on the brazier,

“As I have gone out on a brief errand to buy some trivial souvenirs for my return trip, please excuse my rudeness.”
“As for someone like that girl—rather than the scenery or sightseeing—it seems she tagged along all this way just to devour crabs.”

“What fortunate crabs those are.”

A guest of monastic bearing—around fifty-six or fifty-seven, of refined character and gentle demeanor—rested his hands atop the brazier and smiled faintly at his beardless lips.

“They may not be beauties that crabs would rejoice to be devoured by, but in any case, they eat crab nearly every day, negotiating directly with this inn’s cook from midday onward—since they were the thorny crabs you know—the ones with those straight legs—we bought whatever spiky ones we could find and brought them back. I’ve told this story before: we tried to chew into that inch-wide, jagged meat they call ‘snow-dusted red plum blossoms,’ my wife and I banding together to buy them. But whether it was out of respect for our elders or just gluttonous refusal to let them go, I cannot tell.”
“I myself—with what looked like a red demon’s mask… its carapace pulled up—hung it from what might’ve been a coat or haori, those purple sleeves anyway—a crescent moon shape? No—given the cold drizzle starting and stopping at dusk, it seemed more like serpent’s-eye umbrellas or twilight shadows… the sort of scene begging for some nickname.”
However—before I could finish thinking it better than strutting about pretentiously with maple or camellia branches—I couldn’t bear to watch the old woman who sold it to me… looking ready to crack a turban shell with her fist. (“Splurged on a single basket—two or three sen, maybe? The weave’s coarse anyway.”) …Suddenly, I went trampling through the crowd and mud in my straw sandals, rushed out, and—“There there, Mountain Granny’s brought it for you!”—grabbed one of those coarse-woven baskets from a nearby general store.
“Playfully—not even putting it on her head, with her soiled collar hanging open—she came cradling it against her chest with both hands. Regardless of her appearance, I thought, ‘How tender a woman’s heart can be.’”

The traveling monk nodded as if considering both the speaking and listening to be extraordinary acts.

“From the moment I asked the price, Mountain Granny went rattling off—‘Quality guaranteed!’ ‘Boiled ’em at crack o’ dawn out back in me big pot!’ ‘Just sold three to travelers like you—Tokyo folk, I’d wager—for souvenirs!’”
“If crabs were being boiled out back, you’d expect a seaside granny doing it,” the women had remarked on the oddity.
“‘Mountain’ here—‘seaside’ there—they say those name the market’s sections. So naturally, seaside girls end up selling matsutake and shimeji mushrooms.”

“Indeed.”

And with that, the traveling monk politely nodded once more.

“Let’s take the train back immediately,” we came out to the main thoroughfare… the intersection where streetcars crisscrossed every which way.
Automobiles, bicycles—the human flow wove through them like a loom, though I say this hesitantly—superficially perhaps—but where once we could gaze far into the Castle’s forested stone walls, now before our eyes blazed the lights of a grand department store, casting their glow upon the rain-washed streets like crimson plumes and a thousand emerald-tipped arrows.
I viewed the sea bream, butterflies, and squid of the fish market below through dim droplets that set human shadows swimming—the scene held an air reminiscent of Kikenjō’s legendary apparition, yet...

It began to rain again.

The town shop with its newly lit electric light—one such establishment at the very edge of the eaves—billowed up steam like a giant clam’s breath, then dumped from its steamer basket onto the draining mat what appeared to be delicious buns and something vividly yellow…?

“It’s chestnut-rice cakes—hmm… Warm stuffed mochi coated in glutinous rice flour, dyed yellow for shape—we call them Chrysanthemum-Viewing Mochi too.”

“Ah, chestnut-rice cakes… Chrysanthemum-Viewing Mochi…”

“Cheap sweets with black bean paste… Child’s play.”
“…When measured against the yellow and white chrysanthemums gracing poetry for honored guests, these may border on presumption.”

Bringing his bony yet slender fingers to his mouth, the traveling monk coughed lightly.

“Since our last parting—indeed, it has been far too long.”
“After forty years’ absence—and for the first time to you—…I have brought nothing but these humble handmade playthings, offered with a heart reverting to childhood days spent with friends of seven or eight.”
“Though I declared them chrysanthemum crafts and chrysanthemum dolls when presenting them earlier…to speak of them now brings me profound shame.”
“The contents are mere cheap bean-paste sweets—coated chestnut-rice cake trinkets one might more properly call mochi dolls.”

In a relaxed manner, he opened his sleeves and glanced back obliquely at his chest.
On the low table was placed a plain wood box measuring around one shaku four or five sun in circumference, wrapped in pure white ceremonial paper and adorned with decorative cords, to which was attached an unusual *noshi* shaped like a purple butterfly with white undersides—all arranged without a speck of dust.

Hosaka once took it and gauged its weight—lightly in both hands, yet respectfully—then pressed it down reverently and repositioned it.

“Your words are too kind. —Though I call it the finest of gifts, I have yet to behold it.”
“When I received it, I very much wanted to open it—even more than a Tamatebako.”
“But this decorative ceremonial paper, this decorative cord—they were arranged too exquisitely.”
“I can manage paints somehow, but with these clumsy hands that can’t even repair a shoji screen—and an impatient heart besides—it would be such a waste to tear it open.”
“Biting into crabs is difficult, but since she’s a kind girl who’ll return any moment now, I resolved to at least let younger hands handle it and barely managed to restrain myself.”

This was not an attempt to interject into the conversation.
With an “Excuse my intrusion,” the middle-aged maid brought in a vermilion-lacquered soup tray bearing walnuts, thrush, and kamaboko appetizers.
...she set out a gold-inlaid Aogutani sake flask—though whose preference it was remained unclear—alongside a similarly thick cup placed upside down.
Depending on the drinker, the vessel may have had its own tale to tell—but when arranged with the decorative cords, the painted autumn grasses seemed most fitting.

The top of the low table was a winter meadow of flowers, and the late autumn sunlight passing through the transom shone brightly with a clear blue radiance.
—Those ink-black robes of the traveling monk!

“How about we share a drink? And what of those chestnut-rice cakes you mentioned?”

Hosaka Issha hastily poured himself a drink,

"I loved them as a child… or rather—somehow this talk makes me feel like a child."
"Was it during the time of congenital toxins, or when we fretted over smallpox vaccinations? Grandmother would take me by the hand to visit that temple deep in Uguisudani valley beneath Uchisendai Mountain—and there, the slope before the temple gate was lined with dense trees on both sides."
"Even in daylight, owls would hoot on that branch, on this branch too—right above my head. …Terrifying."
"Being made to walk until I grew exhausted and threw a tantrum, she would coax me by saying, 'Seven-day pilgrimage, seven chestnut-rice cakes,' so I’d sing 'Seven-day pilgrimage, seven chestnut-rice cakes' over and over, and we’d dawdle along the way, counting acorns and chestnuts—I remember it well."
"That’s exactly it.…"

Steaming into the drizzling rain—more than the cakes, it was the scent of yellow chrysanthemums that made it as amusing as a rabbit threshing millet.
When someone said, "That looks delicious," those who had been waiting for the train and taking shelter from the rain opened their umbrellas with a rustle and dashed across that intersection toward the steamed bun shop.
That wife of mine—when it comes to her gluttony, she’s as much a handful as my daughter. Must have picked it up from the radio or something.
“Despite not knowing a ball from a marble, when it comes to snatching up treats, they compete fiercely—both players, I tell you!”
“When they returned carrying bundles of chestnut-rice cakes and steamed buns piled up like Mountain Granny’s basket, they encountered a train—this being the peak hour when crowds surge like tidal waves—but with dinner approaching, their stomachs were empty, and it was cold… so they hurriedly boarded.”
“However, they lined up and stood in the middle.”
“When they stood nearby, the chestnut-rice cakes and steamed buns they carried were so radiantly warm that one’s cheeks might flush.”
“Not just warm—they were practically puffing ‘hot, hot’ as they blew on them.”
“While one of them went to buy tickets, I took charge of the umbrellas, and my daughter handled the mochi instead—how’s that for a plan?”
“They may have acted composed in their sheer silk gauze, hitching up their skirts and—somehow—yanking aside the crimson-layered underkimono like a red-armed giant crab glaring at the basket’s weave, claws splayed… From their collars billowed steam from freshly steamed mochi, thick as milk from a bath-warmed breast.”
“Ah—streaming, a heavenly wind, a pathway through the clouds—there was such a sight.”
“They were riding crabs, circus mermaids—and in the midst of this, the train that was supposed to depart from Kikenjō once again rippled through the rain directly below and raced back toward the fish market that had appeared.”
“Just as they panicked, shouting, ‘The direction—the direction’s wrong!’ the child blurted out, ‘I want milk!’”
While someone turned red up to their ears, my daughter’s face grew pale and took on a bluish tint.
“Maybe we’d been bewitched by a fox—‘Mr. Conductor, sorry, but we need to transfer lines,’ that wife of mine said.”
The conductor was a kind man.
…He silently issued the transfer ticket, chuckling under his breath, and then—wouldn’t you know it—the passengers who had been holding back all burst out in uproarious laughter.
As soon as we arrived at the next station, it was a pitch-dark abyss.
It was practically a leap into the void.
“But here’s the problem—I, the crucial guide, couldn’t tell where in the town we were.”

“It seems I can at least tell east from west, but with the sudden darkness, the road was dreadful.”
The glow from a paused cigarette and dim town lights flickered like fox-fire amidst drifting steam, leaving us uneasy. Wondering if there might be a car or rickshaw inn somewhere, we ventured out again—picking our way through the marsh like herons. As for that old coat—could it have been a water rail?
“It’s not about the train—no, not the train at all—it’s this business with the freshly steamed buns just now, you see.”
Finally returning to the inn by car—and then, you see, in the adjacent room she suddenly bit into a chestnut-rice cake and—ah! So hot…she nearly burned her tongue.
“And when they found the car at the corner house in town, peering down the side alley in the dark, there was a stone torii directly ahead.”
“Don’t be so startled—it’s nothing. …You and I visited the tutelary shrine together, didn’t we?”
“The three of us flapped our wings in confusion as we stumbled about, only to find ourselves on the main street of the house where I was born…hardly amusing.”
“It’s rather odd.”
It felt strangely unsettling.
However, upon arriving here the very next day—fortunately blessed with weather as if tailor-made—we walked until faint sweat glistened on our brows. The dolls had returned to their nests, and from the torii gate onward, we removed our hats and coats to pay our respects.
Yet the cracked hole in that giboshi finial on the worship hall’s steps remained just as it had been decades past. When one considers children embracing these railings to slide four or five feet or attempt climbing them, Tokyo—where others of seven or eight years old traverse eight or nine yards of log bridging Yotsuya’s high stone steps—seemed vast indeed.
That’s precisely why making one’s way in the world requires such effort.
“No—... Since we were shrine-visiting then, it brought some comfort, but truthfully, boarding trains with freshly steamed rice cakes and thorn crabs felt rather irreverent.”

“That too is a traveler’s diversion.”

With that, the traveling monk extended a hand imbued with Buddhist forbearance and addressed the younger painter in tones as gentle as a caress.

“But perhaps I’ve been discourteous to my hometown.”
“Therefore, even if a brat like me were to behead someone, the tutelary deity of the main hall—Meiken Shrine—would pay it no more mind than a dragonfly flitting by.”
“However, as everyone knew, within the precincts’ minor shrines there resided a rather mischievous one.”
"...the inner sanctuary’s side path that leads out to the riverside—where it bends into that Kuragari slope..."

“Ah, Inari Hall—”

“Immediately behind it lay, as ever, an old earthen wall in ruins—even when I saw it this time, fallen leaves had piled high, the dense trees darkened the sunlight, and a cold wind blew.”
“In width, it was about two shaku—a crawl-through space of roughly two ken—but between the hall’s rear and that wall, no matter how mischievous a child might be, none could slip through or crawl past; it was absolutely impossible.”
“…Since even remembering it feels unsettling—with ears sharpening and eyes splitting vertically—they must have glared at Hosaka’s dwarf monk, intending to startle him a little, thus dragging him all the way back from the fish market crossroads… Yes, it was a place one ought to have been terribly afraid of.”
“After all, it’s been famous since long ago—the Monster Inari…”

Just as he started to speak, the pure-faced, gaunt-cheeked traveling monk raised his palm, smiled faintly once more, then smoothly stroked his head once.

“I may have transformed myself, or so one might think… Now, to that place—Mr. Rei.”

Suddenly, familiarly, he called out to the painter by his childhood name,

“Well now, if that place is treated as such a cursed spot and haunted ground—though this counterfeit monk is no Shirazōsu—my tail might show itself. It itches unbearably, I tell you.”
“Having just delivered my formal address—being one removed from worldly affairs—I’ve no calling cards prepared. Nor have I yet stated my residence. In truth, I dwell within the crumbled wall behind that Inari hall’s rear shop.”

His complexion—neither imagined nor contrived—resembled birch bark, steeped in history yet deceptively forlorn.

Yet his expression grew ever gentler, his visage kind,

“But fret not—it’s no dark or chilly place. A mere thatched hut raised from the earth, a hermitage for autumn insects… yet where sunlight falls, small chrysanthemums bloom in abundance.”

With that, he calmly adjusted his ink-stained sleeves.—Now, it was claimed that from the hole in that crumbling wall behind the hall, Sousan had seen Hosaka pass through Kuragari slope the previous day.
At that moment, the white light from the sunlit shoji layered shadows across the traveling monk’s cheeks, making it seem as though a white beard were sprouting there.
He had served as a government official, worked at a bank—and even recalled having amassed wealth through overseas trade.
He lived extravagantly yet dwelled in solitude, spending over forty years in this transient world—never speaking of brothers or children, save for one memory: from his unbroken bloodline had emerged a navy vice admiral, and now he had renounced the world to live in seclusion.
Though he had withdrawn from society, being a familiar figure of his homeland—his hometown—he maintained connections with local inns.
He made inquiries at each place, and overwhelmed by nostalgia—whether amidst the fish market’s throngs or the streetcar avenue’s bustle—he lingered over memories of bygone days and his own form, as though it trailed behind him like a phantom’s tail, until at last he came to visit this inn.

Issha had stayed seven days.—He would depart for the capital tonight… He had already arranged a sleeper car.
He had also finished packing the night before.
After leisurely finishing breakfast, he decided to go out once more to view the water’s form and the mountain’s visage—
while passing through the fish market.

At that moment, his wife was about to leave the room.

The maid came and said that there was someone who wished to see him... Sousan of Kouzan—she relayed the message.
……Mr. Sousan—Overwhelmed by the unexpectedness of it all, Issha felt as though he had glimpsed a blue star in broad daylight.
No—he said it felt as though he were hearing his mother’s voice, beautiful and faint, drifting through the clouds—the voice of one who had been taken from him too young.
A voice from some several decades past, since the jeweled cord of life had snapped—or so it must have been.
Sousan of Kouzan—for him to call himself ‘Mr. Sousan’ was strange in a way… It later became known that his monastic name was Sousan, but this name—apart from existing in childhood memories—had never once been spoken by others or uttered by himself in all the years since, throughout the environments and lives he had inhabited.
Therefore, it felt the same as being immediately summoned by his deceased mother.

Sousan of Kouzan.
For it had been customary for him to be promptly entrusted from Mr. Sousan and his mother’s loving hands into the care of those older friends, whether for school or play.
When he inquired just to be sure, [he learned that] the man was nearly sixty years old, wearing a hifu coat; he appeared to be a monk—slender and of dignified bearing, they said.
Rather than a cavalry general or a fur-coated gentleman, for those who had long lost contact with him, his monkly form was all the more endearing.
“Ah—this is the neighborhood elder brother who took me by the hand and led me when I first started elementary school,” he said in a sodden voice, then turned back from the corridor where he stood poised to leave and asked, “Which would you prefer—being led by Auntie or me?”
“...” She made an exasperated face. “Why don’t you ask Auntie?”
“Then—me or her?”
Indeed—one must swiftly distance oneself from such heretics and welcome this monk-shaped ringleader of imps....

He sent the women out, hastily threw on a single crested haori he had at hand without even properly fastening the chest cord, and since the adjacent upper room happened to be vacant, invited [the monk] there.

“—Especially that hall—its sacred object has remained unknown since antiquity.”
“...First I should clarify—there exists no formal divine name. Only an ancient plaque facing forward bears ‘Inari Myojin’—an inscription all recognize as masterful.”
“Regrettably, weathered by rain, dew, frost and snow—eroded too—on its reverse one faintly sees painted wild chrysanthemums, with the kana ‘kiku’ at a root’s base.”
“Might this be the supplicant? Or... No—truth be told, circumstances exist. That plaque now resides in my humble retreat. Privately I grasp fragments of its karmic tale... But daylight fades and you depart tonight—in such haste I cannot properly unravel it.”
“...Yet having said so—your kindness compels me further. Consider: white-fleshed sea bream and flounder make poor companions to words from sashimi-stuffed lips... Another time may serve better—but know this: what was enshrined there was a woman’s comely form.”
“A secret rite.”
……

“Now, speaking of karmic encounters—they are curious things indeed. In those days, you played tag and hide-and-seek—though of course you likely never entered the hall’s rear—and war games. With a decayed palm-fiber broom, you’d stir up ditch mud… and since it was a neighborhood with poor drainage… swinging that thing about was your signature way of playing, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, come now…”

“Ha ha ha, well now—that carriage-based tactic of yours involved the Oda and Takeda clans.”
“Not only the children—the entire town was thoroughly exasperated.”
“I was always the one to calm things down—at five years old, yes, I believe five—being the older one.”
“Well now, you likely have no memory of this, but the young women of the town would often visit that hall morning and evening.”
“They modeled themselves after that divine female form, and—though it may be improper to speak so directly—your mother owned ukiyo-e prints by Toyokuni and Kunisada: beauty portraits, rare even among townhouses, save for daimyo processional mansions.”
“Whenever there was a chance, they would gather to see them… And in those days, the world was prosperous, the town peaceful, and every household lived modestly—so they commissioned fashions of stripes, small patterns, tomozome dyeing, and brocade-patterned ukiyo-e exactly as they were, wearing them themselves and dressing others in them too.”

“They called them Edo pictures—even naming alleyways after those Edo pictures—and spoke of other towns too.”
“There were always fine young women gathered there.”
“Ms. Fuji of Takamatsu; Ms. Sono and Ms. Hikaru of Nagae; the doctor’s three daughters—Ms. Yuri, Ms. Fumi, Ms. Satsuki—who blackened their teeth; Ms. Tsuma the concubine; Ms. Kyō from Waruka’s household—a vibrant one among them; Ms. Ogin of the pale ink-wash paintings—like little Ogin from the old tales—not a stepsister but a foster daughter living on their charity.”
“Ah, ah—she’d run errands over packed snow, bare feet whiter than the snow itself, straw sandals slapping.”
“Delicate she was, yet refined all the same.”
“Through that spring-snow skin—her filial devotion to those miserly aunt and uncle showed faint as pale plum-blossom shadows.”
“Ah—tears come even as I speak! But soon she vanished in sorrow.”
“To some distant province.”
“Don’t you remember? The girl who often held you, Mr. Rei.”

“I must apologize—I don’t even know her grave.”

When Issha teared up while listening, Sousan abruptly brightened,

“Admittedly… Since I couldn’t have a doll, it’s best to think of this as its substitute.”

“What a fortunate—enviable—doll.”

“The fortunate doll is not limited to that alone.”
“You—licked, sucked, carried around on her back… The Ms. Ogin I just mentioned was a delicate, willowy girl like one of Utamaro’s paintings—and yet another: fair-skinned, softly plump, graceful… Ah, but strangely enough, all the town’s beauties gathered—never scattering in backyards or gardens, never dyeing the streams of famous sites—all became soil in foreign lands.”
“Among them, the most graceful one—in the prime of her youth—vanished without a trace, as if suddenly snatched away by a demon.”
“Even someone like me, you see.”

The chest that Sousan pressed with his hand was dark, the persimmon treetops in the garden casting shadows.
But his sigh continued to sound peaceful.

“After wandering through all directions and provinces, I once served as a caretaker monk at a dilapidated temple in Yamagai of Kurohimeyama. During that time, a beautiful middle-aged woman traveling alone came to worship at Sengaku Temple—she who appeared in the Edo-period ukiyo-e prints of our town… But first, I should explain properly.”
“The weariness of my long journey—by some connection—allowed me to recuperate at a humble temple.”
“In the idleness of daily life there, I learned through observation and instruction—how to tie decorative cords, fold ceremonial paper, create pressed-paper pictures, and above all, the craft of chrysanthemum dolls… which led to these handicrafts I’ve brought with me.”

In the humble eyes gazing at the tabletop, there somehow exuded an air of authority.

“However, unlike those original women’s crafts—divine manifestations they were—though I say mine’s just idle work to pass the time, it’s mere imitation.”
“They call it chrysanthemum craftwork, but whether thread or scraps… I simply tied decorative mizuhiki cords into half-blossom knots and added butterfly wings to the noshi paper with yukari incense.”
“Ah—one moment.”
“Forgive my haste—allow me just a little longer.”

“Now—do you recall that Shimada chignon, most graceful of all, from our old Yokocho district’s ukiyo-e prints near Meiken Shrine?”
“Three houses down from your eaves—yes, yes—where you took a wrong turn searching that night, as you mentioned.”
“That girl’s house lies behind today’s automobile shop through the back alley.”

“Yes, Matsumura’s Ms. Oki-i (Koma).”

Having said that—for some reason—he drew a sharp breath.

“No—that was… As a child, I ended up calling her that—‘Oki-i-san this, Oki-i-san that’—and it stuck.”
“The truth is, her name was written with the characters for ‘Kikuma’ (奇駒), but well—with a bridle-dye-patterned obi scattered with flower petals and bells fastened to her sash that went *tinkle-tinkle*… Whenever that girl walked through the quiet town, they’d ring right away—a testament to her tomboyish upbringing—”

“What… I don’t know if you remember—it was a year of heavy snow, with drifts piled up to the eaves. She carried you on her back in a workman’s coat, swinging you about as she walked—you who were soon to turn five.
‘Gross! Let me down!’ you’d thrash about—and as she wrestled to calm you—the place she brought you to was precisely beneath her house’s eaves.
When she called out ‘Ma!’ in a loud voice, the second-floor shoji slid open—there stood her mother, half-turned, holding a bundle of chrysanthemums (no doubt from the flower shop’s greenhouse, given the midwinter season) for the family altar in one hand. With her pale blue half-collar and downcast eyes in profile, she looked especially gentle.”

“While returning the portion I had borrowed, I wondered—was that in the kusazōshi titled *Shira Nui* or *Shaka Hassō*? …I was on my way to borrow the continuation when—”
“The tomboy said, ‘Now—which do you prefer, the white chrysanthemum or my yellow one, dear boy?’—and Mr. Rei, imagine you clambering up, raising both hands to the second-floor railing, writhing in protest.”
“‘Become a monk and come to the Pure Land,’ she said.”
“Well—that was arranged for me, you see.”

He paused briefly.

“No sooner had she spoken than—lo and behold!—with a jesting flourish, she swung me up from her slipping back in one swift motion!”
The carrying strap, which had been roughly loosened from all the tugging, slipped off her shoulder with a thud from the force of trying to leap up—and she tumbled over.
You fell.
“What she thought—‘Oh hell’—Ms. Oki-i stood there blankly, but for a woman, this was akin to hell itself.”
Half of her chest—her skin slipped down, revealing her shoulder and breast, whiter than glistening snow.

“On the snow, there was no injury at all, but you, Rei, must have somersaulted over the second-floor railing and fallen.”

“In her panic-stricken fumble—the Buddhist chrysanthemums from Mother’s hand tumbled down and became a pillow! Ah—what relief—she laid them beneath that child’s head.”

Shuddering, he shrugged his shoulders,

“Mr. Sousan, Mr. Sousan.”

He continued calling, but his tongue stiffened, each attempted breath catching in turn, and the hand holding the sake cup trembled violently.

"D-dream or... reality—I can hardly tell."
"If Reikichi weren't now nearly fifty, he might have suddenly flipped over and vanished on the spot."
"Or perhaps I saw you suddenly riding upon a cloud in a blaze of radiant light."
"Moreover, if it were true that the tutelary deity emerged from the crumbling wall behind Inari Hall in the shrine's inner precinct... then instantly this ceiling."

Holding his breath, with eyes fixed high—what phantom did he behold?
“……Leaves fell from this ceiling—and just as the room turned pitch-dark, your face… became a fox…”

“Unsettling, ha, ha, ha.”
“Not very peaceful, is it.”

“No—or rather… To think that in that very moment, I might have gone mad—that’s what I mean to say.”

“And why would that be?”

“W-well, th-that’s precisely it…”
“…that’s precisely what it is.”

“Well then, let me pour you a drink.”
“As a fox monk, I might bungle tea-making with kelp and sansho peppers, but my sake-pouring is truly worthless. Here, have one.”

“……I shall take this as a precaution and accept it. —Though what I have received is entirely new to me, with no trace of memory attached to it—yet when I consider it, it seems that within a human lifetime, one may indeed encounter mysterious stars again, Mr. Sousan……”

“—Please listen—”

“I will explain calmly.”
“Of course, I’ll keep to the main points—though I’ve heard you once served as a domestic agent here in Tokyo long ago… Such matters, I believe you know better than I. At Asakusa Kannon, on the old ninth day of the ninth month—which usually falls in mid-October—there is what’s called the Chrysanthemum Memorial Service during the Double Ninth Festival.”
“They sell them throughout Nakamise, Okuyama, and the surrounding area.”
“Yellow chrysanthemums, white chrysanthemums—all small chrysanthemums! ‘Come buy them, come buy them! Flowers for five sen—’ Even those somewhat clamorous calls seemed to carry the fragrance of the blossoms.”
“The surroundings fell silent, overwhelmed by the chrysanthemums’ fragrance. They carried these in their hands, presented them at the main hall, and received replacement flowers in return before departing.”
“Later, when they were shade-dried and placed inside chrysanthemum pillows, it was said to ward off all ailments.”

“You tried to leap from the second-floor railing, somersaulted mid-air, and fell—they say small chrysanthemums became your pillow……I shuddered from the core of my being.—Lately, I’ve been fearing whether piety… whether the sentiments of reverence and worship have not grown faint—if I, in my current state, were to collapse face-up on Nakamise’s stone pavement even once, beneath my head there would be neither Kannon’s chrysanthemums nor leaves or branches from someone’s hand—I would have simply died there.”

“No—it wasn’t that I fell. I saw a perilously, eerily beautiful woman and stood transfixed.”
“The year after the Great Earthquake, there was a small gathering at a restaurant in Okuyama—the day I attended happened to coincide with Chrysanthemum Day.”
“As I approached Nakamise, sleeves and hems and collars—and still so many traditional chignons—filled my view.”
“In that area, eighty percent were women—every last one coming or going held chrysanthemums.”
Just then—as though dyeing the scene with patterns—a sudden shower swept down in gusts.
What I mistook for red plum blossom cakes scattered like autumn leaves, creating a tableau where dewdrops settled on golden clasps with split-deer motifs worn by passersby—and there before that confectionery shop stood a chilling beauty: pale blue snake-eye umbrella held aloft in one white hand alongside chrysanthemums, swiftly tilted as she raised her face upon returning from worship.
Uncommon in her oval features—she might have stepped from a Utamaro print—alluring yet refined in her elegance.
The furled umbrella wasn’t due to clearing skies—
but because umbrellas in the crowd—dun and navy—piled upon one another until even her slender shoulders seemed strained beneath their weight.
Amidst formal attire everywhere—casually bound chignons made black satin half-collars stand stark against white napes like tidelines on shore.
Indigo-tinted workman’s coat with ibis-hued cords loosely knotted—a figure clad in what might pass for everyday wear.
Now closing her umbrella mid-passing throng—in that fleeting moment—she offered chrysanthemums from her pale hand to the child upon her back.
Tossing them aside—the child’s sliding weight tugged her collar askew—shoulder slipping free to reveal skin like polished silk scored by one crimson line.

“Ah—that would be akin to two identical small flowers blooming within the vast cosmos.”

As he spoke, Sousan’s eyebrows tightened.

“From the nape where her sideburns ended, smoothly over one breast to the base of her snow-white arm, I saw large petals—heart-shaped white snow.”

As I speak of this, I find myself wondering—
Why—why did that mere figure disturb my heart to the point of madness?
“It must be because I alone saw that small flower blooming in the vast cosmos—no larger than a mustard seed.”

“No—or rather, even a monk would want to see something that grand.”

Sousan smiled wryly.

The shoji’s sunlight shadow fell slightly low upon the mullions, and beneath the transom, it lay like accumulated snow.

The bird’s shadow vanished utterly.

“However, the child at that time did not slip away from Ms. Oki-i’s body as though from her very skin.”
“But eventually, because of that—art? love? life? madness? suicide?”
“Though my words are those of an unworthy man—I’ve taken to scratching my head—given the times and this depression, with even my parents’ graves now gone—that I came to this land for such a lavish visit was due to having been troubled for days… It was all for the sake of recuperation.”

“Great mercy and compassion, Kannon.”
“I cannot imagine your late mother would hold you at distance either.”
“But at that moment—did you sustain any injuries?”

“No—at that time, even as I was showing chrysanthemums to a child, with only the lingering memory of that visage smiling alluringly, I was pushed apart by the crowd and wandered off in a daze—like a starling straying into some long-ago chrysanthemum-viewing procession, perhaps one from a noble lady’s entourage with maidservants flanking her palanquin.”

“That ends there, but continuing on—two years, three years, five years—roughly reaching the seventh year—on the same Chrysanthemum Day the year before last… Two out of every three times, that memorial service falls during drizzly season and rains heavily.”
“On that day, it was pouring down.”
“Everyone had gone out prepared for the rain, but even the chrysanthemums lining the path were drenched more by droplets on their leaves than dew on their blossoms, and the atmosphere had settled into a damp calm.”

“Here goes—” My heart raced with impatience as I passed by the Red Plum Blossom Cakes shop. On the left side, near what might have been called Ginkado—the flower hairpin shop—when I turned back absentmindedly, there—right behind me—ah! That…that resplendent—
Before I knew it, I had been thrust forward several yards.—It was that woman standing there.
No—I had been walking calmly.
She wore the same figure—an indigo-dyed workman’s coat.

“Only…the carrying strap—wait—though my confusion seemed to deepen by the moment—was a purple and pink bridle-dye pattern… Now that I think of it, had I known at the time that this was the same bridle-dye pattern as Ms. Oki-i used when carrying me on her back……”

“That is somewhat difficult.”

“From what I gathered, it must have been the beauty—combining Ms. Oki-i’s elegance with Ms. Ogin’s refined clarity and loneliness—that captivated me all at once.”
“Yet after seven years, not a year shows.”

“Of course, being such a beauty, she wouldn’t think of growing old. But as for the child she was carrying—well… whether it was her second or third, I can’t recall the face or age.”

“When one gazes upon the face of Mary, they forget Christ”—or so they say even in the West.

Turning right and left, bending sideways, I avoided people and looked back time and again through the rain and umbrellas. Along the same path—yet almost straight—swiftly and without touching anything, that indigo-dyed workman’s coat with its bridle-dye pattern glided by.

Under construction—it was currently a temporary hall.
I changed the chrysanthemums and descended, but did not encounter her before the Buddha.
“There was no other way but this path,” I stood beneath the inscribed pillar—peering through ginkgo roots, gazing at Yadaijin Gate, looking into the water basin’s space—but her figure was nowhere to be seen.—

*The Buddha’s body is perfectly rounded, without a back aspect.*

*“From the ten directions, all beings hear myriad faces.”*―

Sousan,

“Indeed, indeed.”

He composed his expression and said.

“Facing the verses of paired couplets on either side... Forgive me—I took the sacred lot as an auspicious sign, turned the trailing incense smoke into a solitary thread marking her path, and waited motionless until its white ash scattered untouched by the passing shower. Yet among the women jostling past, only sleeves turned cold.”
“I had seen her up until we came before Denbō-in, yet from there until entering Benten Hill, it seemed she had vanished.”

Sousan’s eyebrows moved.

“Hmm, a street demon perhaps—of some kind.”

“Well, a street demon…”

“No—first…”
“The third time.”
“The third… time…”

“What?”

“I see.”

“And then, when I unexpectedly met her again—it was last year, beyond unexpected or anything else, you!… At a mountain hot spring inn in Oku-Izu.”
“The inn was already open and not particularly deep in the mountains—having visited four or five times by then, the valley and stream held no novel charm—but it was late autumn… the season of crimson leaves. A large pond drawn from the mountain stream into the inn’s garden became rapids cascading down a steeply constructed cliff. Beyond a massive boulder, they had installed a bamboo pipe to operate a shishi-odoshi—one such water clock.”
“When water gently trickles into the carved hollow of the wood until full, it spills down into the stream. Keeping time, the pointed pestle-shaped tip clangs—producing an indescribably tranquil, lonely, and beautiful sound.”
“There, as crimson leaves flutter down too, layering colors, the shadows of pines and cedars cast their reflections.”

“Ah, the shishi-odoshi—quite rare.”
“The monk-official guarding the mountain fields… or something like that… When autumn ends, not a soul remains—truly, such is this humble monk’s lot, akin to a scarecrow-like shishi-odoshi… Indeed, once I saw one installed in the inner garden of a certain temple in Sagano, Kyoto—they said deer still visit there.”
“—Because it measures water, it naturally strikes at the same interval with a clang…”

“As a diversion, the one who installed it was a man named Jihei, from a mountain village—a worldly bathhouse attendant who, thinking that merely striking the flat stone surface wouldn’t produce a clear sound, placed a ring of green bamboo where the pestle strikes, making it resonate with remarkable clarity.”
“We talked while sitting on chairs or squatting on the railings of the arched bridge’s corridor. In the bath attendant’s village—one valley further in, among fifteen or sixteen mountain houses—there was a large one.”
“They say it pounds three *to* and five *shō* of rice in a day and night.”
“Whether in moonless nights or moonlit ones, they take turns caring for it—households rotating as shishi-odoshi attendants… That large pestle-type water clock in the valley stream.”
“The small shishi-odoshi on the bamboo pipe’s water clangs once every twenty-one seconds, according to the bathhouse attendant—but by my rough estimate, it’s nineteen seconds.”
“…Sir, my clock here’s synced twice a day with Tokyo Broadcasting Station’s time signal—won’t be off by a single *rin*!” he boasted, pulling out a rather oversized one.
“Not that I’m making a fuss about it, mind you.”

“By the way—the time?”

“My companion hasn’t returned yet.”
“…Still taking their time—ah, just as a substitute for the sake flask arrived—now, let’s move to a warm spot—”

Well—to pass the time while timing the seconds—on the long, winding veranda of the hot spring inn’s second floor—in one wing, separated by a single corridor, lay my rented regular room facing the stream—this section of the veranda occupied the very center of the sprawling inn’s layered wings, in the oldest part of the building.
With its three-sided veranda, light poured in abundantly—yet the space was so vast that even at midday, the center and corners remained dimly lit. …You see, they said that by partitioning the area with thresholds and fully installing fitted sliding doors, seventeen rooms could be created at once. But with the new wing recently built, this section lay abandoned—the inner partitions always removed—leaving an old palace-like hall that spanned roughly 150 to 160 tatami mats.
Taking the pillows, sponge balls, and removing the large pine (kept perpetually fresh without withering), they prepared and arranged them.
They commandeered Go boards and Shogi boards, calling them boxes.
Unless it was a student group trying to assemble ten rugby teams on the bedding futon’s foothold, it was hardly ever used.

Every time I went there—though I called the place damp—it wasn’t actually a hundred-something tatami mats in size.
The veranda beyond the shoji screens stretched straight ahead endlessly until hitting a right-angle bend, sharply turning before doubling back along one side to reemerge onto the corridor path and loop around again… Though “looping” suggested a curve, it was all jagged angles—jolting stops, squeezing through cramped spaces, pushing forward then retreating.
During morning cleanings, rain drummed down heavily.
At night, while the maid tidied up and prepared the futons, I would take leisurely strolls—a cherished way to pass the time.
And in all the inn’s spaces—be it the front desk area, guest rooms, or bathhouse—there was no other deserted spot as devoid of bows and social niceties as this one.

“But in truth—though no one had told me so—if you were to ask whether I could walk around that place during those painful midnight hours when the river’s roar kept me awake… Well… Even that straight eastern-to-southern veranda felt too eerie to set foot on, despite my age.”

It was dusk when the temple on the peak began tolling the sixth-hour bell of evening. Through the spaced trees, by the roof light, I stared intently at the seconds of the cheap clock… Clang—nineteen seconds. Stopping to stand still, walking slowly—nineteen seconds, Clang. Going and coming—Clang. Only the shishi-odoshi remained. The sound of water had ceased too.

A crimson leaf clung to the railing without fluttering; the fallen leaves of the great zelkova spread across the roof before my eyes did not stir even slightly—yet from the peak beyond came the sudden rush of mountain wind. As the shishi-odoshi clanged faintly, there was a silken rustle, smooth and swift.

It was the middle of the eastern veranda.
“I think she turned from the western corner and emerged—faintly pale and oval-faced…”

“……”

“With glossy hair in a round chignon and a child carried on her back in a workman’s coat, she appeared slightly plump—yet her stature was slender. As we passed each other, she murmured ‘Pardon me’ and slipped swiftly by. The carrying straps across her back showed a vivid bridle-dye pattern—had I known this before hearing it from you—I would have tumbled straight from the second floor.”
“Instead, with a clang… and a heavy thud, the clock fell.”

However—the corridor curving backward from where her figure had been was, moreover, in the direction of my quarters—though three rooms were aligned there, there should have been no guests in the remaining two rooms—no, in truth, there were none at all.

"Isn't this strange? Somehow feeling as though someone had entered my room—yet even so, my steps faltered for a moment.

Crossing my arms and stomping back, I found a jet-black coat hanging like a shadow figure on the wall that had been left open all along—startled, I felt as though my soul had been sucked out blackly."

In the alcove, the arrangement of celosia appeared dark; on the hanging scroll were white wild chrysanthemums... and a butterfly.

He started to say—but as his gaze inadvertently fell upon the traveling monk’s gift, he unconsciously straightened his posture and placed his hands formally on the floor. Sousan likewise adjusted his cushion with equal courtesy.

"—However, the back staircase—the one that bends—is right in front of the room, leading down to the lower corridor like a hole. So if she went down there, that would be the end of it."

Just because I saw what was exceedingly rare… the woman carrying a child on her back isn’t necessarily limited to passing through Kannon’s chrysanthemum memorial services in sudden rains.

The maid was talkative.
——In secret, I asked the bathhouse attendant.
“—It’s the off-season… or rather, due to the economic downturn, guests are scarce—he said that out of about eighty rooms in the entire inn, there are only three groups of guests, with none bringing children.”
“However—on the day I passed by that woman—a large kimono dealer from Nagoya touring the Izu region had arrived in three automobiles for their once-a-year transaction. The women of the hot spring town, this inn’s managers and clerks, and a great many wives and daughters had all gathered in the downstairs hall—so it occurred to me she might have been one of them… which… seemed plausible enough.”——

Especially, I couldn’t forgo my usual veranda stroll.
A day later at dusk again, I crouched by the middle pillar of the eastern veranda—my nose nearly brushing the roof’s fallen leaves—and strained to hear that shishi-odoshi’s clang.
Clang—the shishi-odoshi’s pointed pestle somehow seemed to grow eyes on both sides, glaring sharply toward me.
As I breathed alone, my nose tapped at the fallen leaves like a small bird’s beak. Clang—the encroaching evening’s force made my molars rattle. Then through breath-perceptible water flowing through the hollowed device, the pestle rose and clanged.
Until it seemed she had nimbly climbed astride that fox-like pointed back to straddle the railing—suddenly, that woman appeared faintly at the veranda’s curved corner.

“Did a woman ride the shishi-odoshi? Ah—it seems I appear as one bearing Inari Myojin’s plaque upon my back.”

For a brief moment, they exchanged glances.

“…Yes—as if approaching something promised, she came smoothly without any hesitation whatsoever, placed her hands on the railing, and turned her snow-white face toward the distant peak, her bangs and the great zelkova tree aligning themselves with her gaze.”
"She wasn’t wearing the familiar workman’s coat."
Her figure—having shed that armor-like bulky coat—resembled a celestial maiden discarding her feathered robe, now even more delicately poised with her snow-pale form entwined in shadows like silk threads.
No obi, no cords—not even a single layer of tissue paper separating—only a solitary pillar remained.
“……I distinctly remember her words."

“Young master…… Ah—no—what happened to your child?——”

“——I left him behind.
Because he wouldn’t listen.
……You don’t need the child anyway——”

Having said that—she smiled gently.

“Mr. Sousan.”

——I take it to be a Bodhisattva; I think it a demon——

No sooner had I spoken than—fiercely, well, I don’t know what madness took hold—I lunged forward and embraced her white neck. But with unsteady knees, I heavily stepped on the discarded old box brazier I had set aside, lost my balance forward and put my hands down—what stood up abruptly was ash, but on my lips I inhaled chrysanthemum dew. It was already dark; dead leaves rustled and danced blackly through the air. The beautiful woman was gone.

Rather than crawling, he stood—but no sooner had he stood than he staggered toward what he was certain must be the single sliding door concealing that place. Within those hundred-odd tatami mats, his wandering eyes saw a field-like expanse overgrown with boundless grass, leaving him utterly disoriented. Amidst the grass, at the base of a pillar resembling a notice post, lay a bundle of incense sticks—whether for warding off evil, memorial offerings, or curses—and a single half-burned candle. Yet for some reason, there was nothing one could call eerie about it.

He returned to his room and collapsed onto his back—the shishi-odoshi clanged in his ear.
The elongated face of the pestle seemed to laugh.
There was a moon above the mountain stream.
——

Again, strangely… until then, on both sides—about fifty-six panels each—the veranda facing the shishi-odoshi was slightly narrower—one or two of the sliding paper screens that had always been left open were now tightly closed from the following day.
Even if guests were rarely admitted, externally, the place maintained its decorum—the areas not repapered still had neat patches.
While avoiding people’s eyes, I began pacing back and forth, starting a long, square hyakudo.

“Hyakudo pilgrimages, a million recitations, the Hour of the Ox pilgrimage… Well, whatever—clang—using the sound of the shishi-odoshi as my counter, it was midnight.
The long veranda was shrouded in utter darkness on all three sides.
Feeling as though I had walked miles without knowing how far, I shuffled my feet in a full circle and groped my way across what felt like a vast distance—then floated up a step, that, that sensation underfoot.
My foot caught on the upper sandals neatly placed at the sliding door’s seam… it made contact.
That sensation underfoot.
There was a faint warmth like human skin.
I hesitate to admit it, but even when sharing a quilt with a woman, I have never felt such a damp warmth of human skin as I did in that moment.
I bathed my entire body in hot water and was left with fragrant sweat.
Whether my hips had trembled or gone limp, I steadied my unsteady waist and pressed my eye to a gap in the shoji screen. Peering intently into the pitch-dark great hall, there they were—shapes of women, forty or fifty of them, shadow-like and drifting weightlessly off the tatami, floating midair beneath the ceiling.
Beyond countless overlapping layers of obis, sleeves, and fluttering hems that had cascaded down, what seemed to be a candle’s small flame appeared upon the tatami—resembling a leaden swamp.
Thus, dimly and hazily, one could discern the black and white of things.
There was nothing strange about this.
Ropes had been strung haphazardly from pillar to pillar, and the garments of over thirty maids working at the inn were hung there.
Obi sashes, under-sashes, under-robes, haori jackets—all of them… Now that I think of it, during the day there were occasional exchanges of voices, with the maids noisily bustling in and out.
In the wake of their delight at the newly purchased fabrics, they cleared out the chests, filling every gap—a makeshift seasonal airing, no doubt.

Some had gone through the motions of practicing flower arrangement, and along the water’s edge—where mountain chrysanthemums and wild daisies lay scattered in abundance, their blossoms and leaves mingling in the mountain’s embrace—they had left disorder everywhere.

From which sleeves, from which cuffs had those women’s hands emerged? As countless figures—so many of them—began moving shadow-like with chrysanthemums in hand, there she suddenly floated into view: her nose finely shaped, eyes and brows alluring, clad in a bulky workman’s coat and bridle-dye pattern, standing by the water’s edge—that gracefully beautiful woman.

How about this—under parasols hung from the ceiling, she seemed to gaze intently in my direction, then twisted her shoulders coquettishly, alluringly toying with a branch of wild chrysanthemum.

“Little one—” (There had been a child on her back.) “That creepy man… Look—peeking, peeking, peeking away—”

As she spoke—her shoulder shifted, revealing snow-white skin—the face of the child she carried emerged: unshaven, unsightly, the visage of this old man—me.
At that moment, as the woman smiled faintly, her lips appeared pale indigo before my eyes—dyed in the recent *tomozome* fashion with cockscomb red cascading from her shoulders—and there, in the center of the under-robe swaying midair, her face abruptly swelled to fill the entire shoji screen. A weight like a snow-laden temple bell pressed softly, then *thudded* against my chest!
It settled heavily.

“There was a commotion as someone was summoned from Tokyo; I fell backward and once again struck the nape of my neck against the brazier.”

“It would not do for you to trouble yourself again.”
“I have brought this memento of forty years past, but depending on how our conversation unfolds, I shall not present this chrysanthemum craft doll to your eyes for some time.”

He stood holding it, and the hōsho-wrapped bundle tucked under his arm looked heavy. When Sousan’s back straightened upright, the purple butterfly on the noshi ceremonial paper—caught at a loosened edge of the hastily wrapped furoshiki—drew in the mist and soared high.

Under the staircase steps, he crossed paths with a purple-coated figure and a dark-clad storeroom attendant returning down the hallway—but his mind and heart remained so seized by the chrysanthemum dolls that he found no chance to speak.

After seeing him off at the entrance—still clinging with childlike persistence—he followed out to find a bridge over the small stream ahead. Amidst scattering willow leaves at the gate, there was no tethered horse—yet leaves weaving across the narrow stream floated bridle-shadows onward… Along one bank stretched a long earthen wall, beyond which Sousan Houshi, though physically near, seemed to traverse the highway as though journeying afar—the sunlit portion of his aged mouse-gray hat resembling combed white hair.
The snow-white peak of distant mountains galloped like a steed through streaked clouds that recalled combed black tresses.

At the worship hall of Nameken Shrine, two shrine maidens in crimson hakama came and went, and there was a song gathering.

At the shrine office, the three priests spoke in unison,

“Great Teacher.”—

This unison left Issha wide-eyed in astonishment.

“The Great Teacher suddenly decided to... yes, to Kurohimeyama—to see the autumn leaves.”—

“Oh, Uncle.”

The daughter’s hand had almost reached him.

...Shaking off his overcoat sleeve like a snapped squid-kite string, Hosaka thudded down onto the late-night station platform.

It was the moment when the express train had arrived at the old station at the foot of Kurohimeyama and was just about to depart.

His hands—distracted by the thermos that had warmed his sake, the fish laid out before him, and even the walnuts his wife had picked at on the tray—now turned to the freshly bought fermented sweetfish sushi from Himegami River, which he had meant to share with her. Ashamed and tearful, he squatted heavily in the same spot where he had alighted from the train, watching through the window’s dim light as two figures—resembling remaining bellflowers and desolate miscanthus grass—entered the maple-clad valley.

However, if he could scale the peaks and traverse the valleys to see Sousan’s chrysanthemum craftwork, he might perhaps obtain a fine subject for his painting.